LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Kings qualified for the 2013 post-season party as the fifth seed in the Western Conference, and will face the St. Louis Blues in the first round, with Game 1 in St. Louis tonight (5:00 PM PDT, televised in Southern California on Prime Ticket).

For those who may still have the Kings’ sweep of the Blues in the second round of last season’s playoffs on their minds and believe that the Kings will enjoy similar success this time around, you can forget about that.

In fact, the Blues are likely to give the Kings a serious run for the money, and they have a good chance of winning the series, even though the Kings dominated the Blues in head-to-head competition during the regular season, sweeping the three games and outscoring them 14-7 in those contests.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — With the Los Angeles Kings set to face their Pacific Division rival, the Phoenix Coyotes, in the 2012 Western Conference Finals—just the second time in the Kings’ 44-year history that they have reached the conference finals—many are still shaking their heads, blown away at the dominance the Kings have displayed in dispatching the Vancouver Canucks in five games, followed by a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Blues in the second round.

The Kings have accomplished all that by getting solid contributions from throughout their lineup, as 15 players have scored goals in the post-season, and their top players have outplayed their counterparts by a wide margin.

As much as the focus has been on the stellar performances of right wing Dustin Brown, center Anze Kopitar, and goaltender Jonathan Quick, Darryl Sutter has had a tremendous impact Read more of this post

Los Angeles Kings right wing and team captain Dustin Brown says his team needs to improve heading into Game 3 of their first
round playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks.
Photo: David Sheehan

EL SEGUNDO, CA — After returning to the Los Angeles area with a surprising 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven, quarter final round playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks, winners of the President’s Trophy for earning the best record in the National Hockey League this season, one might expect to see huge smiles, lots of laughter, and joking around by the players, showing excitement, and even joy, about their good fortune so far in the playoffs.

But instead of floating on Cloud Nine, the Kings appear to have their feet planted firmly on the ground, knowing that despite having a considerable lead in the series, they did not play all that well in Game 2 on April 13, in Vancouver.

“If you look at Game 2, we had too many turnovers,” said right wing and team captain Dustin Brown. “They had some good chances [off those turnovers], and [goaltender Jonathan] Quick had to make some big saves. We turned the puck over just inside our blue line, [instead of] getting pucks out.”

“I thought we turned too many pucks over last night, and gave them a lot of opportunities, which allowed them to play in our zone a whole lot,” said center Mike Richards. “In the first game, we got pucks in deep. We didn’t try to make those [risky] plays in the neutral zone.” Read more of this post

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Despite their underdog status going into their first round playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks, the Los Angeles Kings, lead the series, 1-0, after winning Game 1 on April 11, 4-2, in Vancouver.

The Kings went into the series saying all the right things about not being concerned about being the underdog, and expressing confidence that they could get the job done against the heavily favored Canucks.

Of course, the Kings were heavy underdogs two seasons ago, when they faced the Canucks in the first round, and it was the same thing against the San Jose Sharks in the first round last season. Read more of this post

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